1/28/09

Please welcome the next step at Windswept Kites. A section of the site devoted to plans for building kites and wind related things.

On the right side of the front page you will notice a link that says -wait for it- Plans.Click on that and you will be brought to the new part of the website that is devoted to plans from our kite makers. Some of these might be familiar designs to you, and some might be new. Some of these might be great for anyone to try to make (the Christophe Tournay Leaf) and some might be for the experienced kite builder (kitebuilder.com forum's Popeye's Enigma cellular piece).

The link takes you to a page that that has an autobiographical section on the kite maker, information on the kite as well as a link at the bottom to download a zipped folder of instructions and pictures.

If you have a plan you would like to share please contact us and we can host it up there for you - all we require is a biography, and nothing else. Share the information!

Keep an eye out for changes that are coming this spring to our website!!!!

1/3/09

So for the last 12 years every New Years Day we have gone out and flown kites at Brenton Point State Park in Newport. Sometimes there are 30 people out there with us-sometimes 3.......

This was one of the 3 more people times. Windchill pushing -1, wind gusting up to 30mph made for an interesting fly. Dave Johnson came out, Sue and Steve (my adopted mum and dad) came out (this being something like their 27th straight New Years Day Fly), and Ron Kitt of Kitt's Kites came out, but alas none of us stayed out in the wind for long!

The Martin Lester Spirit Man was chosen for the fly for two main reasons:

a soft kite can take the wind gusts better (and no assembly time!)

the Spirit was flown in honor of a friends father who passed away this December

well maybe three reasons-the Spirit is just cool too!!!!

Here are a few pix of the day

Quite cold and barren looking, huh? More indicative of the northern Tundra! But it still was fun.

1/2/09

Happy New Year everyone!This is sadly the way the year is starting off in the global kite world: This letter is from our friends (and at least one of our kite makers is involved in this situation). It is a serious offense in the kite industry to have this happen, there is not money to be made in this industry-so for a company to be blatantly stealing designs and then not owning up to it and shirking all contact about this sucks.

We are kite designers and builders.

Some of us develop our new designs professionally to support our income, and some of us make kites for fun. All of us love what we do and to share creations with our friends in the kite world. We are proud of our designs and work very hard to make them.

We are surprised, disappointed, and offended that the German manufacturer, KEWO, has copied our work and is selling them commercially. They do this without our permission, without compensation, and without even giving us credit for the many hours needed to make a new kite fly.

For many of us, this issue is not about money, but about the simple idea that stealing our designs for commercial gain is wrong and should not be tolerated by the kite community. And of course, the copies are often inferior which makes the problem worse.

We have asked KEWO to stop and they simply ignore our letters and emails. Some of us only asked that our names be noted as the inventor of a design and didn't ask for money. KEWO even denied this simple request!

This problem affects all kiters. If we are copied now, you may be copied in the future. And of course, there is less encouragement for any of us to work on new designs knowing that a manufacturer with no sense of honesty or honor can simply steal them.

It is impossibly expensive to patent each new kite design and lawyers take time and money with uncertain results, especially when dealing on a global basis.

We prefer to address this in the Court of Kiters rather than a Court of Law.

To ask you not to buy our kites from KEWO is against German law. But we hope that you will understand our irritation, frustration and incomprehension.